Impurity
by EllaPenny
Summary: Post-War. The group return for their re-take of 7th year, but Hermione goes mysteriously missing. And Draco Malfoy? Her new assigned bodyguard? That was the last thing either of them wanted. But then, he shouldn't have screwed up in the first place... and now that Hogwarts' biggest fear has come back to haunt them, unity is more important than ever.
1. Chapter One

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, but I do own this plot.**

Chapter One

Hermione Granger stared up at her greasy-haired, hook-nosed Professor with both her hands on her hips. He stared just as defiantly back at her, as if daring her to speak against him. The class around them stared with rapt attention. Never, in their eight years of knowing Hermione had they seen her actually stand up to a professor like this. But much as she respected all of her teachers and staff at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, she'd only asked him a simple question.

"Professor, I don't mean to speak out of turn, but I only asked you which page the instructions were on."

"Twenty points from Gryffindor, and if you don't mean to speak out of turn, then you ought not to do it."

"I wouldn't need to ask if you'd just tell me, and I tried to ask Harry, but you told me to be quiet!"

"Thirty points from Gryffindor! You wouldn't need to ask, Miss Granger, if you hadn't just spent the first half of the lesson whispering instructions for the first potion to Mr Longbottom."

"You wouldn't help him!"

"Fifty Points!"

"But sir-"

"Get out."

Hermione rose furiously off of her seat, shoved her books, ink and quills roughly into her bag and threw it over her shoulder, before stalking silently from the room, her hair almost crackling and her cheeks flushed red. The class remained utterly silent for the rest of the lesson. Hermione stormed down the corridor towards Professor Mcgonagall's office, muttering to herself quietly. She rounded a corner sharply as she let out a huff of frustration. Only when she walked headlong into something solid enough to knock her backwards onto the floor did she cease her mumbled ranting. In accordance with her luck of the day, none other than Draco Malfoy stood above her, half deeply irritated, half amused.

"Granger! Are you blind, you idiot?"

"No, are you stupid?" Her fall had taken her by surprise, and so her insult was not as witty as it should have been. "What the hell are you doing out of lessons anyway? Loitering in the corridor like that, no wonder you're in people's way."

"I didn't realise you were a person. And it's none of your business what I'm doing here, Mudblood."

"Another insult that your father taught you? Haven't you learned by now where prejudices like that get you?"

"Are you making implications about my father?" He stood up to his full height, not breaking her glare.

"Why, is your father going to hear about this?" She mocked his repeated words from the years she'd known him. She felt bad about saying this; she knew it was a low blow, and she was being cruel. His father, as everyone at Hogwarts had known from the end of the war, was locked away for life in Azkaban and was awaiting the dementor's kiss. Still, she couldn't seem to stop herself, her anger at Snape was seeping out into her anger at Malfoy, and before she could bite her tongue and keep the words down, she had said them. On the other hand, she wasn't about to take them back either, her pride not allowing her to regret mean words spoken to the person who had bullied her for so long.

"What did you just say?" Malfoy's teeth gritted. Other students had begun to finish their lessons at that point, but she and Malfoy were ignorant of their growing crowd of curious onlookers. Malfoy grabbed her upper arm tightly and pushed her against the stone wall hard enough to wind her for a few seconds. On instinct, her other hand shot inside her robes to pull out her wand, and she immediately pressed it to the front of his throat.

"Let go of me." Her eyes flashed, and he released her arm, stepping backwards. His face had drained of colour. She lowered her wand and Malfoy's smirk slowly returned to his face. She had turned her back and raised her chin, determined to be the one who walked away dignified, when he spoke again.

"Poor Granger. Even though she saved the entire bloody magical world, no one ever sees her as anything other than Potter's worthless, stuck up, bookworm friend. Not even pretty enough to attract the attention of anyone other than _Weasley. _Must be tough, being such a know-it-all and so ugly at the same time."

She knew he was just retaliating, that she'd just embarrassed him, shown him as a coward – again. She knew this was just his way of trying to get back at her for the way she'd spoken to him, but his words had cut into soft spot, and she felt her eyes prickle with tears. She faced him, looked him directly in his cold, grey eyes and turned on her heel and sprinted away from him, shoving away the crowd of people that had gathered. She raced for the bathroom, locking herself in a stall before she took a deep breath and let the tears fall.

_Mudblood. Bookworm. Worthless. Know-it-all. Stuck up. Ugly._ The words ran into themselves in her head, on an endless cycle.

She must have sat in the cubicle for half an hour before finally pulling herself together, berating her own weakness. She decided to take a trip to Hogsmeade, buy herself a drink, maybe a few new books and quills and she'd feel better. It didn't matter what Malfoy thought, and if people thought she was ugly then they were the shallow ones. She didn't need to stoop to anyone's expectations to be considered "pretty".

She stood up, held her head high and walked out of the bathroom, through the corridors, stopping at the empty dormitory to change and get money, and left for Hogsmeade.

**This is a rewritten version of another story I tried to write about 3 years ago that failed epically. I realised the plot could be saved, and so this is my new and improved story. I'll be uploading a new chapter tomorrow, so keep reading if you're interested. Also, remember to review with your thoughts, they do matter to me, and I'll take suggestions on board :)**

**~ EllaPenny**


	2. Chapter Two

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter but the plot is my own.**

Chapter Two

Harry and Ron paced anxiously in the Gryffindor common room. The room aside from the two boys was empty; everyone too tired to notice Hermione's continuing absence.

"Where could she possibly be at this time of night? It's nearly lights out, and the library closed an hour ago!" Harry exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air in angst. He'd known Hermione to be out this late before, however, it was more often than not when the three of them were out sneaking around together, and she had never just not come back without telling him and Ron what she was doing or where she was going.

"Well, if she's not in the library, I don't know where she is, that's the only place I'd expect her to be. D'you think something's happened to her?" Ron's voice was a fraction higher than normal.

"Hermione's many things, but she's not a rule breaker. She'll be back soon, and if she's not here by lights out, we go and find her ourselves, deal?"

"Deal."

Suddenly the portrait door slid open and Ginny walked in, pausing with confusion at their disappointed expressions.

"What's the matter with you two?" She asked, slightly upset about Harry looking so unhappy to see her. She'd only been dating him for two years.

"It's Hermione. She's not back yet and neither of us has seen her since she stormed out of Potions. Have you seen her?"

"No, not since earlier, when she had an encounter with Malfoy in the Charms corridor." She suppressed a giggle at Malfoy's bone pale and horrified face when Hermione had her wand at his neck. She knew it was inappropriate to laugh at a time like this.

"When was this?" Harry asked urgently.

"About four hours ago… She ran off after that, she didn't look happy, but Malfoy doesn't exactly make anyone's mood sparkle. He wouldn't know or care where she is now, so there's no point trying."

Harry ignored her statement and turned to Ron. "I think we ought to pay the ferret a visit."

The boys crept as swiftly and as silently as they could through the corridors under the invisibility cloak until they reached the dungeons, before finally realising the most obvious problem with this plan.

"Do you happen to know the password?" Harry asked Ron, feeling stupid at not having thought about this particular issue.

"Urm... nope."

"Right…" Harry pulled the cloak off of the two of them.

As luck would have it, just as they were about to sit down on the ground dejectedly and wait for a member of staff to appear to tell them off, none other than Malfoy rounded the corner, closely trailed by Crabbe. The four boys snapped to attention at the sight of each other, and Crabbe cracked his knuckles on instinct, glaring at Ron.

Harry brushed off the tension, and refocused on their situation at hand. "We don't want a fight. We just want to ask you a couple of questions."

Malfoy smirked lazily and began ambling towards the concealed door to the Slytherin common room, "well, I don't feel like answering them right at this time, but feel free to come back tomorrow."

"Have you seen Hermione?" Harry interrupted, skipping straight to the point.

"What, Granger? I don't keep tabs on her, Scarhead."

"Merlin! Where is she?" Ron worried.

"She's missing?" The blonde butted in with a bored expression and tone that mismatched his question oddly.

"Yes! And nobody's seen her since she yelled at you. Where did she go after she did?"

"Down the Defence Against the Dark Arts corridor. Probably towards the girl's bathrooms. Can I go to bed now?" He sighed irritably.

"No, you're going to come with us to Mcgonagall's office to explain exactly what happened."

Ron grabbed his upper arm, and Malfoy jerked away. "Get off!"

"As if I'd want to touch your slimy arms anyway!"

"You're the one who-"

"Hello, and what's all this, then?" Filch stood, staring at the argument with beady eyes, while Mrs Norris purred proudly around his legs.

After a verbal wrestling match with the stubborn caretaker that was only relieved by the sudden presence of Professor Snape, who had been woken by the noise, the three boys were escorted not-so-politely to Professor Mcgonagall's office, when they proceeded to relay their stories.

"Mr Malfoy, it seems you and I need to have a long discussion, preferably with your parents present, about the language that you use towards other students on the school grounds, but right now, we need to organize a search party for Miss Granger. Potter, Weasley, you may return to your dormitories now, and Mr Malfoy, I expect to see you in my room at 6 o'clock tomorrow evening for detention."

"We can't go back to our dorms, Professor, Hermione's missing!"

"We wouldn't sleep anyway!"

Draco rolled his eyes at their dramatics. "Can I leave, Professor?"

"Yes, Mr Malfoy. Straight to your dormitory with no detours, if you please." He exited the room rather impatiently, and Minerva turned to face Ron and Harry again. "Alright, you may come with us on our search then, if you must." Harry and Ron nodded immediately.

Professor Mcgonagall rounded up ten staff and they searched for at least two hours through the entire school, stopping nowhere. They were all sat in Professor Snape's office when Harry suddenly jumped up, his expression more hopeful than it had been in the past few hours, making a very concerned-looking Hagrid jump.

"The Marauder's Map, Ron! I can't believe I didn't think of it before!"

"The _what_?" Harry ignored Professor Sprout's question as he slammed open the door and raced back to the dormitories. He returned within minutes, clutching his side with one hand and holding up the yellowing parchment in the other.

He quickly thumped the map on to Snape's desk and opened the pages. Raking his eyes across the ink desperately several times, and then looked around the room at the search party. "Unless she's in the Room of Requirement, she's not in the Hogwarts grounds." He concluded.

"Mr Potter, I have no clue as to how you found this map or why it is in your possession, but if what that map says is true, I suggest we look next in the Forbidden Forest and in Hogsmeade. We will not proceed until tomorrow evening, and for now will all need to get some rest." Ron open his mouth as if to object, and Minerva looked at him sharply. "None of us will be of any use to her if we are all too exhausted to stand, Mr Weasley. I will announce Miss Granger's disappearance tomorrow at breakfast and ask anyone with any information about her to come forward immediately." And with that she dismissed the search party and retreated to her dorm.

Three boys tossed and turned restlessly that night, guilt eating away slowly at their conscience.

**Well, it's a little earlier than expected, but I'd finished the chapter, and I wanted to put it up before I have to start my homework, so, there you have it! I hope you like it, please remember to review ****J**

**~ EllaPenny**


	3. Chapter Three

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, but this plot is my own**

Chapter Three

Harry and Ron didn't sleep as far as they were aware all night, listening to each other's agitated tossing and turning, so the next morning when they dragged their weary bodies down for breakfast, they felt as if they were going to collapse in a heap on the floor at any moment. After the students were all settled in and ready to eat, Professor Mcgonagall stepped up from her chair at the centre of the professors' table and made the announcement just as she'd promised.

"As some of you may well know, last night a student, Hermione Granger of Gryffindor house, did not return to her dormitory." A whisper went round the entire room, and many people turned to stare at the empty place next to Harry and Ron. "After several hours of searching the grounds, it has been concluded that she is missing. If anyone has any information on her disappearance or current whereabouts, I will require you to stay behind after breakfast to share it with me. If not, please contact Mr Potter or Mr Weasley with the details, or share the information with one of the teachers. This is an extremely serious matter, and one which I hope no one here today will take lightly. For those of you who are not aware, Miss Granger is the brightest student of her age, and is not likely to have simply wandered off, and so I implore you all to help as much as possible in bringing her back safely."

The whole day passed slowly, and even with Professor Mcgonagall frequently asking Harry and Ron whether anything had been found, nobody had discovered information about Hermione at all. The afternoon was the worst part of the endless day for Harry and Ron, dragging on while they waited for the call to be able to go out on the search of the Forbidden Forest and Hogsmeade already. Eventually, though, the time heaved around and ten staff plus Harry, Ron and Malfoy separated onto the various paths to Hogsmeade. Professor Mcgonagall, as the new Headmistress, was the leader of their searches by default, and so the detention she had scheduled to hold for Draco could not be held that night in the regular classroom. She felt, as any responsible teacher would, that he would be of much more use to the school helping to find the missing girl than sitting and writing out lines, and so she hauled him out to serve his detention searching instead. As she grouped everyone off to go in different directions, she deliberately set Draco with Harry and Ron, as a revised punishment for using foul language with Hogwarts' best student, which she also suspected may have contributed to Hermione's disappearance in the first place. Draco was most certainly not happy, but decided to go with nothing but silence and a scowl as he knew arguing would not help anything.

"If anyone finds any clues, or anything out of the ordinary, please send up a flare. Someone will be with you shortly." And with that, they departed.

They were sent to go down the shortcut path to Hogsmeade, in total silence. They were not comfortable with their situation, and putting strain on it would be the opposite of useful. They slowly picked their way down the long mud path, surrounded by dull green and brown trees and an odd atmosphere of dislike mixed with worry. They found nothing and had nearly reached Hogsmeade, when Harry suddenly froze.

"What, Harry? What is it?" Ron turned to his best friend, and stopped as well.

"Look at that. What is that?"

"What?" Ron followed Harry's stare. It landed on two medium sized brown paper bags, dumped unceremoniously at the side of the trail, with their insides slightly spilled out onto the path. Books. Ron's stomach clenched.

Malfoy overtook their still forms and headed for the bags, trying to look into them and around them for any sign that they were Hermione's without touching them. In the second bag they checked, they found a purse with little bit on money in. None were looking particularly at the money though, they were looking at the small photo of a young trio of friends: a gangly red-haired boy, a raven-haired boy with spectacles and a petite girl with unmistakable honey-coloured curls.

Harry immediately reached inside the pockets of his robes and put his wand in the air. He was just about to send up a flare to signal the professors when Malfoy stopped him.

"We should probably look around first, to see if there's any more clues." They considered this, nodding and deciding now was not a brilliant time to begin an argument. The three of them searched the immediate area around the found bags.

"Hey, Harry, look at this!" Ron called over to him not long after they had begun.

Ron's findings were near the edge of the pathway not too far down from the bags; two wide prints had been made in the crumbly soil.

"It looks like someone's been dragged into the Forest!"

"Urm… Potter? Weasley?" Malfoy called surprisingly tentatively. "Either of you recognise this?" They ran to Malfoy's side and peered down at what he had found on the other side of the gradually darkening path. Ron held up his wand-light to the object.

There, lying on the ground, mud-covered and snapped in half, was distinctly Hermione's wand.

Harry wasted no time. He aimed his wand at the sky through the trees. "Periculum!"

"This disappearance is no longer being taken as a missing person's case. From the evidence we have gained, we must now address this as a kidnapping." The entire Hall was deathly silent as Professor Mcgonagall stood before them at dinner the next evening. "Hermione Granger, as far as we can gather, was accosted whilst returning from Hogsmeade, and taken into the Forbidden Forest by unknown people. I will ask again. If anyone has any information relating to this matter, they will step forward immediately. And to reinforce what I have said at the beginning of the school year, _no one_ is to set foot anywhere near the Forbidden Forest. If I hear of anybody passing Hagrid's house, you will be _instantly_ suspended, at the very least. I trust that is understood."

She dismissed each house back to their common rooms in turn before striding through the doors back to her office. Each professor she had requested to meet with followed her inside silently and closed the door. She transfigured enough seats and then took her own behind her enormous desk.

"Firstly, has any new information been gathered from any of the students, Severus?"

"No, Minerva, even the ghosts have seen nothing worthy of reporting. Nicholas saw Miss Granger heading down the corridor towards the Entrance Hall around three o'clock on Tuesday evening, and it is fairly easy to assume that she was in fact making her way towards Hogsmeade. He told me he didn't think of stopping her, as she is in fact an eighth year student, with permission to enter Hogsmeade whenever she likes."

"Thank you, Severus. If you wouldn't mind, Argus, I will require you to find Nicholas and send him down to speak with me immediately."

Mr Filch, who was, for once, feeling satisfied with being included in such an important meeting, looked more than a little disgruntled at discovering he was only there to run errands whilst the other teachers were busy. He left, muttering to himself and shutting the door slightly too loudly to be necessary.

"Filius, were any more clues found on any of the trails?"

"No, I'm afraid not, although her wand appears to have been stepped on, we managed to recover the last spell it performed." The small wizard trailed off uncertainly.

Minerva looked at him seriously. "And? What did you find?"

"Well… it was the protective enchantment. Protego."

"She was trying to protect herself…" Minerva's voice cracked near the end of her statement. "Ahem. Hagrid, have you spoken to the centaurs?"

"Oh, yes, professor, they says tha' they haven' heard a thing. Not their par' of the forest, see." Hagrid's eyes welled up and he remained silent.

"Pomona, have there been any other suspicious reports or sightings in Hogsmeade?"

"Well, I've certainly been keeping my eyes and ears peeled, but there's been nothing out of the ordinary there at all. The shopkeeper at Flourish and Blotts says she remembers seeing her, she stayed for about an hour before leaving. By my calculations, she would have reached the point in the trail that her bags were at around half past 5."

"Thank you Pomona. Has anybody else found anything at all?" The room remained silent. "Right. Well, thank you all, and we will continue to look more closely into this matter over the next few days. I called in at the Auror's office this morning and reported Miss Granger as missing, and from this point onwards, they will be assisting us in our search. Ladies and gentlemen, it truly troubles me to have to say this, but if nothing of Hermione is found before the end of the week to suggest otherwise, we must begin to treat this as a murder investigation."

**I know Ii really shouldn't keep uploading this quickly because people will get bored, but I can't help it :P hope you're enjoying it so far, I certainly am, and many thanks to ****_Colubrina_**** and ****_Tamcor _****for your reviews, I really appreciate it :) In reply to your comment Colubrina, I am deliberately making sure I don't create the typical 'instantly reformed' Draco, because it's simply not in his character, plus, it's really fun writing scenes where he's a douche :) please review with any tips or suggestions you have, I will listen to them :)**

**~ EllaPenny**


	4. Chapter Four

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, but this plot is my own.**

Chapter Four

It had been five days since the discovery of Hermione's wand and bags on that path to Hogsmeade, and still no sign. Not even a whisper of where she might be. The entire school seemed to become silent and grey in her absence, particularly for Harry and Ron. The teachers walked around looking determined but weary and worried. Harry and Ron retreated further into themselves, and though both of them knew their friendship was not at risk, they rarely ever spoke, even to each other. They were sat in front of the fire on that fifth evening, having decided to skip dinner, when Ron finally spoke up, louder than he had in days.

"That's it." Harry looked up at him, curious, but with still no emotion on his face. "We can't just shut ourselves away from this, she's missing and she needs to be found. Us sitting here depressed is not going to find her, looking is."

"What are you suggesting? You think we should waltz right up to the Forest and announce to whatever's listening that we're looking for someone? Because going by past experiences, the Forbidden Forest isn't particularly accommodating to wizards, or more specifically, fresh, defenceless meat."

"Stop it, Harry. You know as well as I do that we're not defenceless. You've taken on Voldemort! And _won_! And that was for people you didn't even know! Do this for Hermione, Harry. For the first time since that troll, she's the one that needs our help."

Harry nodded slowly, stood up from his armchair and walked with more purpose towards the dormitory stairs that he had done since Hermione went missing.

Minutes later, they had grabbed the Marauder's Map, the invisibility cloak and were walking out of the portrait hole.

In a wholly different area of the same castle, Draco Malfoy sat in a similar armchair by a similar fire, thinking about Granger's disappearance. She's smart enough to not have died immediately, he knew that. He resented how much the professors had worried over Granger, the mysterious circumstances she'd disappeared in and the fact that she wasn't back yet, because he knew for certain that they wouldn't be quite as concerned for him. And yet, he understood why. Well, he hadn't helped save the entire school, all the muggle-borns and nearly the whole magical population of England, for a start. And then there's the fact that she was the cleverest witch of her age, although his pride commanded him to defend his fairly good grades as well. That had annoyed him, how much his father had goaded him into doing better by mocking him about getting lower grades than that ridiculous-

He stopped. It was all over, his father was gone. It was humiliating, how much he had put his father on a pedestal, and now he was locked away in prison for good. That was something else she'd insulted him with. It felt like a slap in the face, and not just like the physical one the idiotic girl had given him in third year. And so he'd insulted her back with something he knew would hurt, and it had, he saw that when she'd turned round and looked at him, there were tears just bubbling to the surface.

She hurt him, so he hurt her. It was a simple matter of retaliation, and it wasn't his fault she'd taken it to heart. And yet, he still couldn't shake off that idea that it might be… that it could be all his fault…

Draco's dreams turned to nightmares that night, and when he awoke with a start in the early hours of the morning still sat in that armchair, the guilt once again consumed him.

Hermione was jolted awake by a hand on the back of her neck, yanking her upwards and into consciousness. Still feeling stiff and achy from lying on the Forest floor all night tied to a tree, it took a minute or two for the pain she had already sustained to kick in, but she felt it when it did. She gasped from the shock of the pain, but bit her split lip when she realised the two men who had taken her could hear. She wouldn't give them the satisfaction of knowing she was in pain. She hadn't yet, not even after ten, twenty Crucio attacks. She hadn't once screamed. The man who was holding her neck cut the ropes attaching her to the tree, before pulling her up roughly again and forcing her to walk towards where the men had set up camp.

"Right, princess. You're going to do some talking today."

"She won't talk, she's Potter's best friend. She won't betray him." The man still sat at their camp was using a blunt knife to scrape dirt out from under his fingernails and looking extremely bored. He was shorter and thinner than the other one, whose fingers felt great clammy sausages on the back of her neck.

"We'll have to get it out of her somehow." The first man, the big one, threw her onto the ground in front of him, not bothering to mind her broken ribs.

"Then we need to try a different method." The bored one replied, finally looking at her through the ugly gold mask that each of them wore, Hermione assumed to hide their identities. "I suggest the method that Bellatrix adopted."

"Bellatrix's method didn't work last time!"

"Then we have to do it better. Maybe she'll remember the pain and talk."

"I've told you, it won't work!"

"We have to try. Unless you'd like to go back to the messenger without anything to report? Again."

"Fine. But hurry up, we need to move soon, we've been here for too long, we'll get noticed."

The two men approached her slowly, looking at Hermione's bruised face expectantly. Although she couldn't identify them because of the ridiculous masks, she could plainly see the skull imprinted on their left arms. A black snake wound its way round the skull and through its mouth, and it seemed to move on its own. Hermione recognised it at once. The dark mark.

"Alright, sweetheart, you know what's coming. Are you going to tell me where Potter took it or not?" He whispered into her ear.

"No." She whispered through gritted teeth. She nearly choked on the stench of alcohol rolling out from his mouth, but she simply turned her head away.

"Insolent little Mudblood!" He stood up and looked down at her small frame. He spat on the ground next to her face. "Crucio!" He yelled. He enjoyed watching her writhe, but she refused to scream. He lifted his wand for a minute. "Still not even a sound? Pity. Now, let's try something you'll remember fairly clearly." His voice had turned to a dangerous murmur. Kneeling down beside her, he wrenched her head to the side by her filthy hair as the other former Death Eater pinned down her arms and legs. The one holding her face to the side pulled a tiny pocket blade out of his waistband and placed the flat side of it on her white neck, as if to warn her about what he was about to do.

She froze when she felt the cool blade against her throat, near her jawline and her earlobe.

"Are you sure you still don't want to talk?" He sneered at her before pressing it further into her skin, almost breaking it, but not quite. She remained silent, closing her eyes and refusing to look at him.

He snarled at her again and took the knife properly. He took the sharp edge and pressed it into her skin, breaking it and cutting deep enough that she knew he'd leave a scar. Hermione's face pressed further and further into the dirt and she tasted blood from the inside of her mouth as she desperately tried not to scream in pain. She remembered the pain of the last time, struggling for life under Bellatrix's weight as the sadistic witch permanently marked her arm. It was not nearly as painful as this. She felt tears run across her face and she silently prayed that she would die soon, that he would accidently cut too deep into her throat and kill her, get her out of this horrific situation.

She felt her consciousness leaving her after a while. The blackness covered her eyes, making it impossible for her to see, but she was grateful. It filled her entire body, numbing it. The last thing she heard was the sound of approaching footsteps outside of the silence bubble the men had created, and then the darkness washed over her completely.

**There you have it, folks, the fourth instalment! I hope you like it, please review with comments and suggestions :)**

**~ EllaPenny**


	5. Chapter Five

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, but this plot is my own.**

Chapter Five

Six nights after Hermione vanished, Draco strolled down the corridor, his shoes making quiet rhythmic taps that echoed through the deserted halls. The idea he had was that if he made himself tired enough, he could sleep dreamlessly without having to ask Professor Snape for a potion. He had just turned into the Defence Against the Dark Arts corridor on the fourth floor and was utterly lost in his train of thought what he smacked straight into… thin air.

"Ow!"

"Who's there?" Draco asked, throwing an arm out in front of him. "Look, I know you're there, so you might as well show yourself." Harry pulled the invisibility cloak off of himself and Ron reluctantly. "What the hell are you two doing out in the corridor at gone lights out?"

"We were just… we were…" Ron stammered

"Why should we tell you where we're going, when you've not even told us where you're going?"

"I'm not going anywhere, so it'd be a waste of time asking!" Draco said, defensively.

"Then why are you walking around?"

"It's none of your business."

"Like where we're going is any of yours."

"Alright, I couldn't sleep! Does that make you happy?" Draco lost his temper. There was silence among them for a few long seconds.

"We were going to find Hermione." Harry said quietly.

"Oh."

More silence. Harry and Ron began walking away. Draco's pride nearly suffocated him, but the guilt was unbearable. He couldn't take any more nights like this, he suffered enough of them before and during the War, he didn't need them afterwards as well, especially over the stupid muggleborn girl that had been the bane of his academic life since they arrived at Hogwarts.

"Potter, wait."

"What?" They turned and stared at him.

"I'm coming with you."

"What? No you're not, piss off Malfoy, you'll get us all in trouble!" Ron exclaimed.

"Why in the name of Merlin's saggy left would you want to help us look for Hermione? You know, the Mudblood, the know-it-all, the-"

"I know what I've called her! I can't sleep, I'm trying to tire myself out so I can, so I'm coming with you."

"No!"

"Just let him, Ron, means more people to be able to spot her."

Ron looked highly irritated, but turned and carried on walking without a word. Harry followed, and after a second of hesitation, so did Draco.

The three of them headed into the Forbidden Forest, walking carefully around the back of Hagrid's hut so as to not wake up Fang and set him off barking.

They had only gotten a relatively small way into the vast Forest before Harry suddenly clutched his head in a pain he hadn't felt in just under half a year. "My scar! It's burning!"

"What?" Ron looked incredulous.

"Ron, Hermione is out there!"

"What the hell does Potter's bloody scar have to do with Granger?"

Ron answered for Harry. "His scar only burns when there are Death Eaters around."

"So you mean Granger is wandless, alone in the Forest and so are a bunch of armed, angry Death Eaters? Well, that's a relief." He said sarcastically.

"Shove off Malfoy. And don't pretend like you weren't one of them."

Draco lost his temper at the ignorant ginger for the second time that night. "I wasn't like any of them. I hated having to kill people. I knew I wouldn't be able to kill Dumbledore. And I also knew that someday you would just bring it up again and use it against me!"

"This isn't helping! We need to find Hermione. Now." Harry became the peacekeeper, lifting himself up from his doubled over position, still holding his head.

"He's right, she's in trouble if they're out there. They're not best pleased with Potter, and I'd expect as a direct link to him, she's not exactly popular either. Especially given her blood status." Draco agreed, and both Harry and Ron looked at him in questioning silence.

"As if you'd want to actually find her anyway." Ron didn't bother trying to keep his voice down.

"You know, you don't half paint me to be an absolute brute, Weasley." Draco smirked at him. "I'm not completely heartless. As much as I dislike Granger, I don't actually wish her dead."

"Could've fooled me." Ron muttered, just loud enough for Draco to hear, but he ignored the jab.

Ron still didn't look convinced, but they carried on searching, following Harry's scar's navigation. The closer they got to the Death Eaters, the more painful it became, and so they followed the pain.

"I'm not entirely sure Potter's head is the most reliable way to-"

"Shut up, look!"

And then they saw her.

She was pinned to the ground beneath one Death Eater and the other looked like he was cutting into her neck with a blade. She wasn't moving, but she had tears streaming down her face, half buried in the soil, a dead giveaway that she was in pain. A silencing bubble appeared to have been placed around them, so the boys couldn't hear her, not that she seemed to be making much noise anyway. And in what seemed like and instant, one of the Death Eaters looked up and saw them. He grabbed Hermione's and the other Death Eater's arm. And with a flash, she was gone.

Harry sent up a shower of flares immediately, but they knew they were too late. She was gone, and there was nothing they could do except stand there.

"Who are you trying to signal? Nobody else is here!"

"We were so close!" Ron kicked a pile of leaves angrily, only to receive a medium electric shock from something on the ground. He fell onto the leaves heavily. "What the bloody hell was that?"

Harry peered more closely at the tiny object under the leaves, and sucked in a deep breath in realisation. He slowly bent down and retrieved the small, diamond-shaped stone, where hovered a few centimetres above his palm.

"The Resurrection Stone." He breathed. "This is it!" He exclaimed, making Ron jump.

"What's what?" Draco asked.

"This must be what they were after the whole time! Think about it, they had to have been in the Forest in the first place to have seen Hermione. They must have been in the Forest looking for this! They can't have known she was coming, because she missed lessons, and she never would have normally done that. She must have only decided to miss lessons and go to Hogsmeade because of the confrontations with Snape and Malfoy, and they saw her and recognised her, so they jumped her, thinking she'd know where I'd put it. It all makes sense, except…"

"Except what, Harry?" Ron looked highly animated as he finally understood the motives for Hermione's disappearance.

"Except they were wrong. I never told anyone I dropped it out here, I thought it was adding more risk of other people finding it again."

"Well, you can't have hidden it very well, Weasel just nearly blew his feet off tripping over it." The other two boys, wrapped up in the same vigour that had consumed them during their hunt for Horcruxes, ignored Draco.

"But this means that they must be trying to resurrect someone…" Ron looked Harry in the eye. "You don't think… They couldn't be trying to resurrect_ him,_ do you?"

"I think that's exactly what they're trying to do."

"We need to go and tell Mcgonagall."

"Right."

They hurried out of the Forest, too preoccupied to worry about not waking up Fang, but Fang didn't wake anyway. They raced up two flights of stairs, down another, and up again and reached the entrance to Mcgonagall's office and knocked furiously.

**And the fifth chapter, up and ready for viewing! Wow, nearly three hundred views in three days, thanks guys! Keep reviewing and following, I get so happy whenever I get a new email :) I'll hopefully post a new chapter tomorrow after college, I'm really loving writing this, I hope you're enjoying reading it just as much :)**

**~ EllaPenny**


	6. Chapter Six

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, but this plot is my own.**

Chapter Six

It was still dark outside when Harry was awoken by a sharp tapping sound on his window a week after Hermione went missing. He groggily stumbled out of bed, put his glasses on and clumsily wrenched the window open to allow the large tawny owl entry. It shook its feathers of the rain and held its leg out towards Harry, offering the crumpled paper it was clutching to him. Harry took the letter and held his wand light up to read over it. He dropped his wand.

Scrawled across the page in huge, dark letters were the words: "_THE STONE FOR YOUR GIRLFRIEND – YOU HAVE THREE DAYS_."

Harry must have frozen for nearly three whole minutes before walking rather shakily across the room to Ron's bed. He shook him cautiously.

"… No, mum… more minutes…"

"Ron!" Harry whispered loudly. "Ron, look at this!"

"What? What?" Ron grumbled, reluctantly turning to face a pale Harry. Harry held the paper and the light towards him. "Oh no… You were right, Harry! We have to tell Mcgonagall!" Ron scrambled to his feet.

"No, Ron, we can't… Mcgonagall never knew that I had the Stone in the first place. As much as she likes Hermione, she won't risk the lives of everyone at Hogwarts for her."

Ron was quiet for a minute. "You're right. So what do we do now?"

"We need to do it. They'll get the Stone whether we give it to them or not, they've lost their leader. We might as well save the one person we're going to need alive if they really are trying to bring him back."

"You'd be basically giving them permission! We can't do that, Harry, people are only just starting to recover from the last war."

"Ron, they will pluck the Stone from our cold, dead hands if they have to. The Death Eaters lost their reputations, their homes, their families, they're not going to go down that easily without a fight."

"We gave them a fight. We won."

"Their lives have been destroyed by the War-"

"What do you want me to do? Give them all massive comforting hugs? They're out there right now torturing our best friend, probably to death, for information that she doesn't have. Hermione is one of the most amazing people I've ever met, but Mcgonagall would be right – it's not fair to everyone who's lost someone…" Ron trailed off, and Harry knew he was thinking of Fred, the elder brother whose body he had cried over in the final battle.

"Ron, I know how much you fear losing your other family members, but Hermione is like family to me. You and Hermione _are_ my family, and I can't lose anyone else. Voldemort, if can come back, will be weaker than we've ever faced him before, but we can't do it without Hermione. She's the intelligence behind every plan we've ever had that's worked."

"Alright. So say we do give the stone to them. Who's to say they won't just keep Hermione anyway?"

"Me. If they don't return her safe and alive, we go to wherever they're hiding their slimy, pathetic, cowardly arses are hiding themselves and her and get her back for ourselves."

"Deal."

"Now the only problem is… How do we get the Stone back to them?"

As if to remind them he was still there, the tawny owl screeched indignantly at the two of them, making all the remaining sleeping boys in the dormitory stir.

"I'd say with him." Harry began to open his bedside draw when Ron stopped him with a hand on his arm. "Wait, Harry. What if they return her as promised, but only after they've killed her first?" Ron's voice was shaky.

"They're relying too much on this deal. They'll keep her alive if it means they get the Stone."

"Surely it would be a better idea to send a note ahead first? Just to tell them we've agreed to it, so they don't jump to conclusions and kill her anyway."

"Good idea."

Harry grabbed a quill from on top of his bedside table and scribbled a quick note on a spare bit of parchment. He folded it untidily and tucked it into the owl's claw. The owl flew away and back through the open window into the night, but not before giving Harry a painful peck on the top of his head. Harry supposed this was some sort of thank you for sending him back to his owner.

"What did you write?" Ron inquired.

"I didn't give them a riddle to solve. '_We'll send the Stone. Let her go_.'"

The two Death Eaters had only disapparated a few kilometres away from the snooping boys before calling it a day. In their panic, the big one had flung a blacked out Hermione over his shoulder, and dumped her heavily back onto the floor again once they were a safe distance away and in a wide enough place to set up their camp again.

They had been feeding Hermione off of the scraps from their tinned meals, which was not much, considering the broad one ate two tins to himself whilst the other could barely eat half. When Hermione finally recovered, she was lying in an uncomfortable position and tied to a tree, and immediately spotting the half-empty tin sitting by her head, began eating. She was ravenous; the big Death Eater had finished off the smaller one's tin two nights in a row, leaving her with nothing, and her stomach felt crumpled in on itself. She slowed down eating and became quieter when she realised she could hear the Death Eaters whispering in a way that they obviously thought she wouldn't be able to hear.

"Just send that message. It's blunt, straight to the point and more threatening than the huge paragraph you'd have me send."

"But how will he know when to send it, and he'll get her back when he does?"

"It's simple, you blithering idiot. He sends the Stone, we let her go."

"Alright, fine. I'll get the owl." Hermione heard the cawing of their owl as he gave the note to it and told it who to deliver it to. "Harry Potter." Hermione gasped. She heard the flapping of large wings getting fainter. They were using her as blackmail against Harry.

Waiting until the men had fallen asleep in their sleeping bags, Hermione, using new found strength, managed to lift herself up from the ground, using support from the tree. She was determined to escape, that night. Wincing and groaning quietly in the pain shooting through her body like an electric current, she stood up and leaned against the tree she was tied to. Panting, she turned to face the tree. Using wandless magic (she thanked Merlin she was the brightest witch of her age), she focussed all of her remaining concentration, as she'd been taught to, on the rope connecting her to the tree trunk, closing her eyes in effort. The thick rope severed, and she wanted to scream with happiness. As quietly as she could while her legs threatened to give way and it felt like she was going to pass out with fatigue at any moment, she limped off into the forest, away from her oblivious captors.

**A bit late, but it was worth it, wasn't it? Hermione's free! Yay! I want to post a new chapter tomorrow, so watch out for that, and review and follow if you liked it :)**

**~ EllaPenny**


	7. Chapter Seven

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, but this plot is my own.**

Chapter Seven

Hermione, wandless and weak, had only gotten a little way through the Forest before realising she had no idea where she was or where she was going. However, having just been tortured and starved for the last few week, she came to the reasonable decision that wandering around aimlessly was less painful than staying put, and so she carried on walking through the Forest without direction.

The Forbidden Forest, especially at night, tended to be a frightening place, full of traceless sounds and strange movements in the shadows. There was a constant feel of being watched by something or someone you couldn't see. She was so tired that she was shaking hard enough to disrupt her vision, and she was having to force her eyes open again every time she blinked.

Hermione had spent the majority of the night wandering the dark and dull Forest. It was day break when she realised she had fallen asleep against a tree trunk somewhere in the middle of the night. She immediately got to her feet, moaning quietly. She found that in the daylight, it was easier to see, and therefore, easier to find out where she was. There were a lot less sounds and movements trying to scare her, and so she walked on with more confidence. She found what looked to be a very tall tree, and proceeded to struggle to climb it. She eventually did it, looking out over the webbed branches of other trees to see if she could spot where the trees ended, or even better, if possible, Hogwarts. She actually began to cry when she spotted the tall turrets, only about a mile from the tree she was in. Out of sheer luck, she had walked in the right direction, in only half a mile, she would be out of the Forest, hopefully for good.

She carefully climbed down and started briskly walking, ignoring the shoots of pain she felt and the protests of her aching muscles, towards the place she had come to call home.

She heard the snap of a branch behind her and whirled around. Her relief died faster than she would have thought possible and was replaced with fear. She was unarmed, defenceless, and weakened, so she did what anybody else would do in the same situation; she froze.

"Ah, my beauty." The small Death Eater smirked. "You didn't really believe you would be able to escape, did you?" She cringed away from him when he grabbed her, roughly, by the arm and pulled her closer to him. His breath stank of alcohol and smelt as if he had not washed in three years. Her instincts told her to go with him, to not fight, while she was in his grasp. But her Gryffindor reflexes told her to stand up against him and fight. Who was she, a Gryffindor, an ally and friend of Harry Potter, to back down from a death eater? Her back straightened and her chin jutted out defiantly. He was obviously unaware of this sudden change of heart however, and was shocked to say the least when she very quickly and unexpectedly kicked him in the shin. This was a moral her parents had reinforced since the tension before the War began; if she was ever out of resources, never doubt the good old-fashioned muggle way of dealing with things. She silently thanked them, wherever they might be. He doubled over in pain and instinctively dropped his grip on her arm. Hermione ran as fast as she could away from the man, who was now running to catch up with her. She almost broke down with relief when she reached the edge of the trees, but she refused to stop, sprinting with all her willpower towards the great castle, never having been so happy to see it in all her life.

Draco was quiet and withdrawn, and generally not his normal, arrogant, confident self. He was slowly being consumed by the feeling that he was the one who had given the Death Eaters an opportunity to kidnap her. If he hadn't with her, she wouldn't have been taken. And now she was Merlin knows where with two Death Eaters that he hadn't had time to recognise. It was so frustrating, not being able to know who she was with. There had been a time when he'd known everything about all of the Death Eaters. When his father had been one of the elite few whom Voldemort shared things. He suddenly jerked his mind from that direction of thought. And now, knowing the full extent of the cruelty these people could will themselves to do, he had felt almost... Sad that Hermione was gone. Almost… Worried. But that was ridiculous, he hated the girl. Hhe reasoned his feelings with the fact that he wouldn't wish the Death Eaters' rage upon anyone, not even Potter himself.

Draco spent most of his time wandering the castle these days, skipping his classes, avoiding anyone and everyone. He recognised the guilt now. It was his fault. His fault. He sank down against a wall and ran his hands through his platinum hair absentmindedly. Eventually he stood up, cursing himself for behaving so without etiquette, and headed down towards the Great Hall to see whether lunch would have been served yet. It must be around midday. For some reason he couldn't bring himself to go in, in case there was someone else in there and he would get caught skipping classes if he had the time wrong. So instead he sat on the steps outside waiting for other students to arrive first, facing the huge entrance to the castle, and glaring at it as if he half expected it to suddenly bow under the pressure of his stare. He realised what he was doing and closed his eyes, rubbing his hands on them. Trying to clear his head.

His head jerked up when both doors flew open, and an unmistakably bushy-haired girl stumbled in, slamming the doors shut as quickly as she could. She leaned her back against the doors, out of breath, covered head to toe in mud and her body covered in spatters of dried blood. Her clothes were torn and filthy, her face coated in mud and nearly every inch of exposed skin was cut open, bruised purple or scratched.

"Granger?" He exclaimed, astounded by her sudden, horrific, appearance.

"Malfoy?" She tried to take a step forward, but her legs collapsed under her. As soon as she felt her body hit the ground, she gave in to the force of her tiredness and pain and, once again, everything went black.

**I treat you guys too much with chapter uploads :P Special thanks (again) to Colubrina, who's been really supportive of my entire story so far, I really appreciate your comments on my chapter uploads, they're all lovely :) **

**~ EllaPenny**


	8. Chapter Eight

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, but this plot is my own.**

Chapter Eight

Draco just stood frozen on the spot, looking at the unconscious girl laying on the floor. He cautiously walked forwards towards her, watching for signs that this could be a trap. He turned her over onto her back, checking her face so prove it really was her. He concluded it was; despite how skeletal it now looked; unhealthy. He lifted his wand, fully prepared to 'Ennervate' her, but he noticed her injuries again and realised that she probably needed the rest and the relief from pain, even if it was only temporary.

Instead, he went with his natural instinct and levitated her carefully, one arm held underneath her in case she wobbled and fell on her head. He walked slowly down the corridors and all the way to the hospital wing like this, glancing up at her worriedly every couple of steps.

He entered the hospital wing with Hermione hovering just in front of him, her hair hanging in loose matted clumps, and immediately the whole ward and all the staff's eyes were on him and her.

"Oh, my..." Madam Pomfrey rushed out of her office at Miss Redfeather's – a new apprentice Mediwitch – request. "Put her down here." She instructed. "This is the girl who went missing, I presume?"

Draco nodded and lowered Hermione carefully onto the bed. He then took a stance at the bottom of her bed, where he stood unmoving.

"We'll need someone to alert Professor Mcgonagall immediately," She said, healing Hermione's broken bones. "Mr Malfoy, would you please go and inform her?" It wasn't a question, it was an order disguised as a question. Still, the blonde-haired boy exited the room, casting one more curious look towards Hermione. Madame Pomfrey was already waving her wand over her and inspecting her injuries.

Harry and Ron were sat in Charms, taking no notice whatsoever of the lesson going on around them. The room could have been on fire for all they knew. They only barely regained focus when a white-faced Professor Mcgonagall marched into the room closely followed by Draco, ignoring Professor Flitwick, who seemed taken aback by the headmistress's unusual rudeness.

"Potter, Weasley, you will follow me to the hospital wing immediately." The class exchanged confused glances, and then astounded looks towards her blonde haired companion. What on Earth was Professor Mcgonagall calling Harry, Ron and _Malfoy_ together for in the hospital wing? Ron and Harry gathered their things into their bags and left the room silently, looking tired and alert at the same time as they realised that it could have something to do with their missing friend.

"Miss Granger has returned." Minerva concluded once the four of them were all out of earshot of their classroom, but the boys were running towards the infirmary as soon as they heard Hermione's name. The class behind them was left in bouts of hushed whispers and wide eyes for the rest of the lesson.

They practically burst to the infirmary, throwing the doors aside carelessly. They ran straight to her bedside. They had not missed the fact that Draco had been the first to know about Hermione turning up, but neither of them actually cared in that moment. Their concentration was focused on the still unconscious Hermione laying in the bed.

She looked awful. Her skin was a sickly pale underneath layers of dried earth and blood. Her hair was bushier than it had ever been before, with a specific clump near her neck completely matted with dry blood. Her face was the most disturbing part of her. Her split lips and black eye were made even more prominent by her whitish skin, her cheekbones were more prominent than they had ever been before.

"Who could do this to her in one week?"

"We all know the answer to this question, Mr Potter." Mcgonagall looked deathly serious.

Draco suddenly remembered the way she was crying in pain as the Death Eaters did something to her neck the last time they'd seen her, before they were noticed and the three disapparated.

"Wait, we saw them doing something to her neck, remember?" Draco stated. Ron and Harry's eyes widened and they carefully turned her head to the side and moved some of her curls away to look at her the side of her throat. Everyone, including the staff who had gathered around her gasped at what they saw.

Drawn on her neck by the thin blade they had seen the Death Eater holding was a triangle. The triangle had a circle reaching out and touching the sides of it, with a line straight through it to the bottom.

"The Deathly Hallows!" Harry whispered in disbelief.

"What does this mean?" Ron asked.

"It means that we have to keep the three Hallows out of the Death Eaters' hands for as long as we possibly can." Harry and Ron looked at each other, exchanging guilty and worried looks at each other.

"Professor, we know that the Death Eaters already have one of them."

"What are you talking about, Mr Weasley?" Mcgonagall's voice was calm, but the glint in her eyes was dangerous.

"W-well, you see… Harry got a message last night from the Death Eaters that had Hermione saying that they'd kill her if we didn't send the Stone in three days and so we sent it and-" Ron had not breathed out the entire sentence before Mcgonagall interrupted him.

"You sent them the Stone? I never even knew that you had it within your possession, but you have endangered us all here by sending it to them."

"I never meant to put anyone in danger, but they would have killed every last one of us for it anyway, and we need Hermione here if that happens. Please, Professor, they would have killed her."

Minerva Mcgonagall pursed her lips. "Very well. If another fight is what they're asking for, then we have no choice but to give them another fight." She seemed saddened for a minute, before gathering her thoughts, standing up sharply from the hospital chair she had chosen to take a seat in and marched out of the infirmary.

The boys then turned to Madame Pomfrey. "Is she going to be okay?"

"Oh, she'll be just fine. A bit of rest, food, and SkeleGrow, and she'll be good as new. Although, since the injury on her neck wasn't healed immediately, she will be scarred, I'm afraid."

"I think she'd prefer to be scarred than dead."

"Quite right. Now I must ask you all to leave, you are going to interrupt the healing process, and she will need more time than you are giving her currently."

The boys reluctantly turned and walked slowly back out of the hospital wing, looking back once at Hermione each as they did. As soon as they had left, Harry and Ron seemed to remember that Draco was stood with them, and turned on him.

"Why were you here, Malfoy?" Harry asked aggressively, but still curious.

"I found her lying unconscious in the Entrance Hall on my way to lunch." He lied to them a little; there was no reason he had to explain his feelings to these gits. "And I didn't see either of your heroic Gryffindor arses coming to pick her up, so I did what any _decent_ person would do and took her to the hospital wing, and then I was sent to go and get Mcgonagall for Pomfrey."

"Why didn't you go away after that? No reason for you to stick around."

"What? Go away and miss all the excitement?" He smirked at their unamused faces.

"You're a prat, Malfoy." Harry begun to walk away, back to the common room.

"No 'thank you' for the person that rescued your bookworm for you?" Draco's smirk got wider as Harry slowly, painfully turned on his heel and spat out a "thank you" through gritted teeth, before marching off stiffly back to the Gryffindor common room, Ron with him, to announce that Hermione had returned, and she was okay. The relief in the eighth year Gryffindors in that moment was utterly intense.

**Over nine hundred views, wow… thanks so much to everyone reading! Seeing the views go up completely makes my day :) just thought I'd put up this chapter now for you!**

**~ EllaPenny**


	9. Chapter Nine

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, but this plot is my own.**

Chapter Nine

It was a week and a half more before Madame Pomfrey would wake Hermione from her medically induced sleep. Harry and Ron would frequently visit, often several times a day, to talk to and about her. It was very lonely to them; to have a friend with whom them would normally share everything so silent and still. They asked Madame Pomfrey and the other Mediwitches every day if there was any chance of her being woken up, until eventually, they said she was healthy enough.

Ron and Harry sprinted down four flights of stairs after finishing History of Magic and shoved the doors of the hospital wing into the room. Hermione, who was sat up in bed and eating soup, jumped slightly, and then her face split into a smile.

"Hermione! You're okay!" Ron stole her bowl from her lap and hugged her as hard as he could.

"Ow, Ron!" Hermione protested, but she was still smiling. Harry hugged her more gently.

"How are you?"

"I'm alright now, I'm fine."

"So what happened? Tell us everything."

Madame Pomfrey coughed from behind them. "It may not be the best time to engage her n talk about her trauma, she's still recovering."

"Honestly, Madame Pomfrey, I'm okay, I can talk about it."

Madame Pomfrey gave them a fleeting look before turning and walking back into her office.

"So, go on!"

"Well, you saw the confrontation with Snape, and I'm assuming you heard about the fight with Malfoy, and I decided to cheer myself up by going to Hogsmeade and buying some new books, and on my way back, someone jumped out at me from behind the trees. I tried to fight him, but he was so big, and while I was defending myself against him, another guy attacked me from behind, and took away my wand, I watched them snap it in front of me. And then, they hit me with a spell and I don't remember anything after that until I was deep into the Forbidden Forest, and that's when they began asking me where you were keeping the Stone, Harry. They didn't believe me when I said I didn't know."

"We saw you once, while you were with them. Harry, Malfoy and I went out searching for you in the Forest, and we saw them torturing you, carving the deathly hallows sign into your neck, but they saw us. They disapparated on the spot, there was nothing we could do."

"Oh, Ron… Wait, Malfoy? He was the one who brought me to the hospital wing as well. What was he doing searching for me with you two in the Forest?"

"No idea, we just ran into him in the corridor on our way out and he said he wanted to come with us." Harry joined in the conversation.

"That's strange. Do you think he's up to something?"

"He could be trying to redeem himself after everything he's said and done over the last few years."

"But if he was, he never would have called me Mudblood when we fought the other day."

"Ron, you don't think Malfoy had anything to do with Hermione's kidnapping, do you?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Harry. Even if Malfoy's still a complete arse, he's got far too much at stake to risk it on plans like this. Remember? We read in the paper about his mother? The only reason she's not in Azkaban with her husband is because she has to look after her son, legally. If Malfoy gets arrested, so does his mother."

"She should be in Azkaban. She was a Death Eater." Ron seemed annoyed that Malfoy's family had once again gotten away with criminal activity, at least to an extent.

"No, Ron. She's the reason I'm alive. In the Forbidden Forest, when Voldemort destroyed the Horcrux inside me, she lied to him and told him I was dead because I told her Malfoy was still alive. Plus, it wasn't her that committed all those crimes, that was all Malfoy senior." Harry defended her.

"Anyway, all of this is irrelevant, as long as Harry's still got the Stone." Hermione folded her arms as if that settled the matter."

"Oh… Didn't Mcgonagall tell you? The Death Eaters tried to blackmail us, told us they'd kill you if we didn't send the Stone to them."

"I know, I was there when they were talking about it, that's why I escaped, to make sure you didn't send it. What have you done?" Hermione was dangerously cautious.

"We sent it to them. We needed you back, Hermione." Harry looked shameful.

"You did _what_? Harry, that was so irresponsible of you! They want to resurrect Voldemort, the most evil wizard of all time and you gave them the single tool they needed!" Hermione looked incredibly distressed.

"He'll be weaker than he's ever been before, Hermione, and we need you to face him either way."

"No, Harry, you don't understand… It's not just Voldemort that they're going to resurrect. They're going to resurrect everyone… Bellatrix Lestrange, Fenrir Greyback, Amycus and Alecto Carrow… They're bringing them all back! They want to fight this war all over again!"

In a place so safely far away from the children protected at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the few Death Eaters remaining who were not in prison or dead gathered around a weightless stone in the middle of a field.

"We call upon Death by the power of the Resurrection Stone to grant us back Bellatrix Lestrange from beyond the grave!"

A loud, rattling gasping noise came from where the Stone had been placed, and slowly, a dirty grey mist rose from the ground, along with a long-haired brunette woman, who although being slightly paler, looked very little different from before Molly Weasley had destroyed her. She cackled, as she was explained their plan, and took her place next to her husband, who had not been caught or killed.

"We call upon Death by the power of the Resurrection Stone to grant us back Fenrir Greyback from beyond the grave!"

Again, a paler, and yet exactly the same Fenrir Greyback rose from the grey mist, and stood away from the Stone, awaiting another arrival.

"We call upon Death by the power of the Resurrection Stone to grant us back Amycus Carrow from beyond the grave!"

And then, the same words called again. "We call upon Death by the power of the Resurrection Stone to grant us back Alecto Carrow from beyond the grave!"

Four more names were called, all of which were the names of fallen Death Eaters. The air in the dark night itself seemed to shiver with anticipation.

"And now, fellow Death Eaters, we shall call back to life the one whom we have proven cannot die! Will not die!"

"Allow me," Bellatrix had put her hand on the Death Eater's shoulder, "Dolohov. We call upon Death by the power of the Resurrection Stone to grant us back Tom Marvolo Riddle from beyond the grave!"

And, just like all of the other Death Eaters had risen, Tom Riddle was reborn into the world through the dark mist. Except, Bellatrix had not specified which part of Voldemort's soul she had wished to retrieve from Death.

Voldemort stepped out of the shadows and into the vision of all of his followers, and he was but the young, handsome man he had been when twenty five years of age.

"Get me a wand."

**Sorry about the lack of updates yesterday, I've started back at college now, so uploads will be slightly slower, but I'll be as fast as I can writing and posting them. For those interested, I kept Snape alive in this fic because I think he's a very good positive/negative character, I feel it would be a shame if I left such a complicated person out of the story. Thanks so much for all the positive feedback, it brightens my day :)**

**~ EllaPenny**


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